Multilateral Diplomacy

Abstract

Governments, we have noted, operate by assigning specific responsibilities to individuals and teams. As a consequence, most Foreign Ministries have a number of sub-units or departments¹ tasked to handle issues that arise in multilateral organisations, treaties, regimes and conferences. These may include for instance:

• the Legal Department which is often charged with the negotiation of treaties;

  a UN or International Organisations Department;

  one or more departments for economic affairs, responsible for relations with and participation in international organisations operating in the economic field, such as the World Trade Organization and the International Civil Aviation Organization;

  a department dealing with defence-related issues, wherever they arise, which would cover, inter alia, multilateral and regional disarmament issues and international peacekeeping operations;

  a department — or sometimes a separate unit outside the Foreign Ministry — dealing with ‘development assistance^‘2 (whether the country concerned is a donor or recipient or both);

  possibly, specialised departments dealing with specific topics (such as human rights, environmental issues, or narcotics) or with an organisation to which the government attaches special importance (for instance, the Indonesian Foreign Ministry needs a specialist department to cover its relations with the Association of South East Asian Nations and another for the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries).